


His Merry Laugh and Wretched Smile

by Lassroyale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-24
Updated: 2011-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassroyale/pseuds/Lassroyale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The handprint Dean bears is not a mark of Heaven, but a parting gift from Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Merry Laugh and Wretched Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Just an different interpretation about Dean's infmaous handprint.

Dean missed Hell.

He missed it like he might miss a beloved family dog that had one morning disappeared from the backyard with no indication of why or how - just a length of broken chain left attached to a stake in the ground. He missed it with the same bitterness of someone whose chronic pain - a familiar discomfort - had suddenly been lifted.

And Dean fucking missed Hell because he and Hell had had an understanding. It was an understanding between them that had been reached without any questions needing to be asked. Hell just _knew_ what Dean wanted; what Dean _needed_.

Hell knew that Dean had been dead while he'd been living. Hell knew that he had for the first time really _lived_ , while he'd been dead. Hell knew that he had borne forty years of torture with something close to pleasure, his soul splintered and jaundiced by twenty-some years of disappointment, grief, and disenchantment.

And, for all of its implicit understanding, Hell gave Dean _pain_.

Oh, and it was such _exquisite_ pain, at that! It was the type of pain that slid through one's veins - poison that burned slowly, becoming as necessary to Dean as his need for validation. It was the type of pain that nipped at the ends of the nerves; a sharp bite of constant reminder. It was the type of pain that comes from experiencing pleasure so intense that the flesh feels pared and flayed, the pleasure so raw and skin so painfully oversensitive, that the body is unable to understand the difference between the two.

 _That_ was the kind of pain Hell had given Dean. 

And Hell showed him pleasure, too - shameless, guilty, perverse pleasure that was oh-so-fucking _good_. The kind of pleasure that becomes muscle memory: ingrained so deep within him that he could always feel a pending orgasm gathering in the pit of stomach. It was an ache that could never hope to be abated - not while Dean was living.

Then there was the handprint.

Both Dean and Castiel knew that the handprint on his shoulder wasn't a holy mark from the angel or a symbol of his purification. No, the print was a mark of Hell - and that was the rub. Hell _wanted_ Dean to remember it. Hell had clung to him as he was being lifted away from its jealous embrace, clinging to him like a violent lover unable to let go.

Hell had left its five-fingered brand on Dean, and nothing, not even the grace of an angel, could remove it.

And every single moment he still breathed the handprint reminded him of the pain he was missing.

Dean used to think he needed that feeling; fuck, he _knew_ he needed it - still needed it - because the unique pain reminded him of Hell. It reminded him of the suffering, of the ecstasy; of the sweet ambrosia of damnation that he might never get to taste again.

That in itself, was a goddamn tragedy. Some days Dean couldn't go a minute without thinking about it; at night, when he sweat and shook and screamed, Sammy thought it was because of nightmares. He was wrong. Those were some of the most erotic dreams he'd had, all broken bits of glass, dull knives, and blunt teeth; all blood and innards, and the tang of sex that overpowered the smell of death.

Dean would wake, sweaty and hard, arching off of the bed in desperate remembrance of skin as soft as a baby's cheeks, and fingers - cold, skillful, and cruel. He would twist up, a strangled sob of loss smashed against the back of his teeth as his orgasm fell out of his sights.

And a chasm in Dean began to open: A chasm that no amount of wanting could fill.

That was before the angel came to him, perching on the edge of his bed when his brother wasn't around. Castiel's voice was low in the silence of the motel room, and his features were harshly beautiful in the yellow light of the lamp on the nightstand. His words disoriented Dean; the sound of his voice triggered a pain so fucking intense that he felt muddled with a sort of lust that he hadn't experienced in oh-so-long.

Part of him felt ashamed with the guilt of denial: the guilt of needing something so pure to feel something so goddamn _filthy_.

Yet every time that Castiel stood near him, every time they touched, Dean could feel Hell in the pain that emanated from the handprint. It breathed against his lips like a lost love that that teased him with a soft, merry laugh and luring, wretched smile.

And when Dean smiled back, Castiel might smile too; and each time he did, Dean only saw Hell behind the angel's deep blue eyes.

(The End.)


End file.
